Wakeup Call

September 02, 2006|The Morning Call

NO MO WORRIES

Bill Madden of the New York Daily News on Mariano Rivera's importance to the Yankees:

"Ordinarily, two wins out of three against the best team in the American League, coming as they did after a deflating 2-4 West Coast road trip, should have been cause for much elation ... And, make no mistake, the Yankee Express appears to be rolling full steam again toward October, but the prevailing mood in the clubhouse was more a sigh of relief.

"As if there wasn't enough of a hangover after Scott Proctor's blown save the night before ... the Yankees waited nervously, right up until game time, for the results of the MRI taken on ... Rivera's arm. Over in the other clubhouse, Tigers manager Jim Leyland, defending Joe Torre's decision not to use Rivera to close the Wednesday nightcap, said it all: "I'd have done the same thing. In fact, if I was Joe, I'd rest him again today, too, because if you fracture that guy, you've had it."

"And don't the Yankees know it. They can lose Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano, for extended periods, a lot of them even at the same time. Mike Mussina can miss a couple of starts. Carl Pavano a couple of years. It is nothing compared to losing Mariano Rivera. When that day comes, they will have had it."

GOING OUT IN STYLE

Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times ranks Andre Agassi's performance in his second-round win over Marcos Baghdatis in the U.S. Open as one of the all-time greats in tennis.

"The bald guy with the pigeon-toed walk and the sore back is still with us," Dwyre wrote.

" ... Agassi, age 36, did the improbable, the unthinkable, perhaps the impossible in a 3-hour 48-minute victory and love-in with an estimated 24,000 tennis fans ...

"He beat a man 15 years younger and 31 ranking points higher, and when the five sets were over, it appeared to be [Baghdatis] who was hurting more physically than tennis' Father Time.

"This was a second-round match, but nobody will remember it that way. Most finals in this sport, in the major events, no less, have had 30 percent of this drama." TRIVIA TIME

Name the two players who share the NFL record for most seasons with one team.

Answer: Jackie Slater (Rams 1976-95) and Darrell Green (Redskins 1983-02) each played 20 years with one team.

Wakeup Call is a collection of observations from sports figures and writers worldwide.